Leap of Faith
by Mariel Nightstalker
Summary: Harry Potter doesn't want to live anymore, and Hell turns out to be more inviting than expected. Of Demons AU. SLASH Asmodeus/Harry Potter


**Leap of Faith**

What if there's something better than your life, right now? What is reality is only an illusion? What if you're crazy and everyone else is sane, living in a Utopia just beyond your reach?

It was questions like these that drove Harry to take what philosophers once called a leap of faith. In modern, common terms, he attempted suicide.

He tried it on the roof of Grimmauld Place, during the summer of his eighteenth year. Everyone else seemed happy now that Voldemort was dead and gone, but something held Harry back from their fulfilled existence. Ron wanted him to become an Auror trainee with him, but he just…couldn't. It would feel like defeat to descend into the same dull existence everyone else seemed content with.

The thing you need to know about Harry is that he somehow manages to succeed in some way even when he fails.

It was a knife he used, for lack of a better weapon. Within the first five minutes of making gentle slashes on his arms and ankles, he began to feel strange. The dizzy mirror-like quality of the world all merged into so extraordinary a feeling of disembodiment that he fell to his knees and then on his face. His knife slipped shy of the vein he sought, slicing through minor ones instead, and he slipped into unconsciousness mistaking it for death.

The knife clattered on the roof tiles, the only sound that lonely morning in May.

Soft music met his ears when he at last swam back to awareness, and he opened his eyes slowly. He frowned. The sky wasn't glorious and blue like he'd been expecting. It was the distinct scarlet of drying blood, streaked with greasy-looking black clouds. Lolling his head, he searched the horizon for the setting sun but couldn't find it. There was no sun here.

He tried sitting up, and his fingers dug into something like sand. Looking down, he recoiled when he discovered himself to be sprawled on a bed of powdered bone. He leapt to his feet as if burned. This didn't help much because his feet were bare.

Perhaps he should've worn something other than pajama trousers when he killed himself.

Sighing, he did a full turn to see where he'd landed. This wasn't the misty afterlife he'd been expecting, the one where his parents and loved ones burst out and welcomed him. in the distance to east was a tangled wood, to the west was some kind of pitted lava pit, and to the south was a high curved wall built from blackened stone and mortared with some kind of pinkish paste. Turning around, he looked north.

There was a tower, soaring into the sky, if you could call it that. It was tapered, with a base roughly the size of a suburban house and the tip maybe the size of a large bedroom. A door was set into the base of the tower, but there was also a stone staircase built into the side that went straight to the room at the top.

He mentally flipped a coin, and the outer staircase won.

This could very well be off-limits to the common dead person, but Harry wasn't in the mood to care about something like that. His wand was missing, and he felt exposed and silly without it. It was strange to think about how dependent he'd become on a stick for his safety. When had that happened?

The steps were warm on his bare feet, and worn smooth with age. The center of each step dipped deeply, so he had to be careful that he didn't trip or stub a toe.

When he reached the top, he was confronted by a door. It had no handle and no markings that might disclose how to open it. Harry pushed on it with a fingertip, and was rewarded with nothing. With comic fastidiousness, he used his closed hip to press against the frame.

It gave suddenly, and he toppled onto whatever hapless person had opened it.

Said hapless person had bright yellow eyes.

With a shriek, Harry bounded off of him and into the far corner of the room, between a bookshelf and a suspicious-looking urn. From his new hiding place, he could properly look at the doorman. It was a man, on the very tall side, with long brown hair liberally streaked with white. He frowned. He hadn't looked old when he fell on him…

The mystery man turned, once again showing off his yellow eyes, but also revealing that his features were as youthful as a man of 25. He smiled at Harry and crooked his fingers at him in much the same way one gestures at a skittish animal.

"Hey there…I'm not going to hurt you…"

He stepped closer and Harry curled his leg up to his chest. Despite his human form, he could tell that there was something off about this guy. His eyes were a big indicator, but there also hints in the too-smooth way he moved.

The door opened before he could take another step.

"Asmodeus, how many times have I told you-! …What is that?"

The mystery man, apparently named Asmodeus, turned and shrugged at the newcomer, saying, "I don't know boss. I was just innocently reading your diary when I heard this thumping noise on the door. I thought you'd forgotten your keys or something, but it was this kid."

"Oh. Well, get rid of him…wait a minute…"

They paused, looking at each other, and then turned as one and stared open-mouthed at Harry. Harry curled tighter into a ball and hoped for the best.

"Azzie, why, exactly, is he solid?"

Harry snuck a peek and saw Asmodeus shrug, "I don't know, Lucifer. Like I said, he just barreled in here and sat down a couple of seconds ago. I didn't exactly have a lot of time to notice things like why he's solid and dressed in mortal clothes."

A sinking feeling morphed into a strong hypothesis. He was dead, but he wasn't in heaven. He was in hell. Lucifer was the name of the Muggle devil prior to his fall from grace, when he became known as Satan. His eyes narrowed. After all the bullshit he had to do and put up with on earth, he went to _Hell? _This was unacceptable!

His outrage gave him courage, and he shot to his feet to indignantly say, "Hey, I'm still here you know. Now, I came up here because I didn't know where else to go. I want some answers, and since you two are the only people…um…demons I've seen, you're going to have to give them to me. That or tell me who's in charge around here."

Lucifer raised an eyebrow, and Harry was struck by his resemblance to young Tom Riddle Jr.

"I am 'the one who's in charge', as you put it. Why don't you have a seat?" he gestured to a gilt blue velvet sofa set in front of a massive desk made of some kind of gleaming black-polished wood. Harry sat meekly, outrage fading now that they were being civil.

Asmodeus sat down next to him and slung his arm around Harry's shoulders. Since the sofa wasn't meant for meant for two people, Harry was forced to sit half on Asmodeus' lap.

He blushed.

Lucifer sat behind the desk and steepled his fingers before smiling pleasantly at Harry; Harry's stomach seized when he saw that his eyes were bright red, "So…your name?"

"H-Harry Potter."

"Age?"

"18."

He wrote it down on a loose piece of paper on his desk, using a pen that looked disturbingly like it was made from bone. Harry remembered the crushed bones he'd awakened on and felt nauseous. Why oh why was he in Hell?

"Okay, Harry, can you tell me the last thing you remember?"

Harry explained his suicide and why he'd chosen that road. He spoke haltingly because every time emotion colored his words Asmodeus curled a little closer to him as though to comfort him. It was starting to feel kind of good, since he smelled good and he seemed to know just where to touch him, but he was still a stranger. Not to mention a man. Harry tried not to focus on it.

When he finished his narrative, Asmodeus leaned in close and smelled in his hair. Harry tensed.

"You smell divine," Asmodeus murmured.

Harry squirmed, his sense of propriety telling him to get away but his long-suppressed libido telling him that he was going to take what he could get.

Lucifer looked up from his notes and absently said, "Don't mind Asmodeus, Harry. He's something of a shiftless bastard. No scruples, no morals, and no sense of self-control."

Instead of objecting to this or seeming even remotely offended by this, Asmodeus nuzzled his neck in an extremely familiar manner, "Your skin is soft too, for a boy. It's like solid cream…"

Harry jolted to his feet when he licked him. "I…ah…may I have a glass of water?" In his defense, his throat was extremely dry.

Lucifer nodded his head toward a pitcher of water on a sideboard below one of the few windows. He looked out as he poured himself a glass with shaking hands, and almost dropped the pitcher when he saw that the wall was actually a circle. Inside that circle was another circle, slightly lower thanks to a pit. Inside that was another, and then another and another. He counted nine, the innermost one barely visible from his angle because of how deep it was.

He gulped his first glass and poured another. Returning to the sofa, he found that Asmodeus had taken advantage of his absence to sprawl out. He patted his knee invitingly and Harry sat on the spot between his spread legs instead. It was slightly more scandalous now that he thought about it, but he'd never sat on someone's knee and he didn't mean to start now.

Asmodeus pulled him back against his chest and sighed happily. Harry scowled and gripped his water glass with both hands. Lucifer appeared to be looking something up in a book now, so he kept quiet.

"Alright, I've found out what you are. Congratulations, you're not technically dead." Harry stared at him, so Lucifer went on, "You must be incredibly strong-willed to have made it this far instead of just limbo like most people that thrust their souls out of their bodies on will-power alone. Anyway, you need to arouse a strong desire to be on earth again if you want to go home. Otherwise, you're stuck here for the foreseeable future. I haven't had new staff in forever, so we'd have to find something for you to do if you stayed here."

Harry blinked, and thought about it. He swatted away Asmodeus' wandering hand.

Did he really want to go back to the life he'd just escaped from? Did he want to get some job, find someone to spend the rest of his life with (be they man, woman, or creature), and just…carry on? Did he want to put up with the hassle of magical travel, put up with the goblins at Gringotts?

Did he have anything to live for?

The answer was depressing, but he'd suspected it for quite some time, ever since he'd defeated Voldemort, in fact. He had nothing to live for.

"Can I leave later if I change my mind?"

Lucifer nodded, "You can actually leave any time you want to. I'd prefer that you gave me some notice, though, so that I don't wonder where you are for a few decades before realizing where you've gone."

"Will I age?"

He consulted the book, pursing his lips as he skimmed the information page, "It says…no. No, you won't. Because, you see, you're not really a person anymore. You're kind of a being of will. You control when you live or die instead of Fate, so to speak."

"Oh," Harry whispered, feeling overwhelmed by the knowledge that, for the first time in his life, his destiny was completely his own.

"I take it from your questions that you mean to stay?"

Harry nodded, "Yeah, I guess so."

"Excellent. I'm afraid you'll have to share a room with one of the Demons, since we have limited living space. You will room with…" his eyes flicked to Asmodeus when he made some kind of signal behind Harry's back. Harry twisted his neck to see what it was, but he was too late. "…Asmodeus. Asmodeus, make sure he's comfortable. And find him a shirt."

"Sure thing. Come on," he stood and grabbed Harry under the armpits, hoisting him up onto his back. Harry clung to his neck, and tried to figure out what was going on.

"Oh, before you go," Lucifer called to them, pulling a scroll from the top of one of the bookshelves. He unrolled it on his desk and beckoned them over to look at it, "Here is the chart listing the staff."

There were seven little portraits on the parchment, with names and jurisdictions written beneath their portrait. Each demon seemed to be in charge of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. He skimmed the faces for Asmodeus, noting that Lucifer's sin was Pride.

He nearly groaned aloud when he saw what Asmodeus was in charge of: _Lust. _He would be lucky if he made it through the next few hours with his virginity intact.

Then again, he wasn't sure that was a bad thing.

Asmodeus' rooms were a quick jaunt down the stone steps. He was roughly three floors beneath Lucifer's office. Asmodeus waved Harry in ahead of him and then closed his door behind them. Harry looked around with interest.

There was a large brown leather sofa dominating the room, with a desk in the far corner and shelves covered with records and devices much like the one's Dumbledore used to keep in his office. An open door revealed a bathroom. He peeked inside and found it standard with the exception of the bathtub, which was big enough for two. He wondered if Asmodeus was accustomed to guests.

The final door opened onto the bedroom. There was a balcony on the far side of the bed, which dominated the room. Its covers were white, much to his surprise. He'd been expecting something garish like red satin. The rest of the room was vaguely baroque, and his wallpaper depicted birds of paradise.

He crossed the room to go out onto the balcony.

Leaning against the doorframe, Asmodeus watched him. As a demon of lust, he'd become accustomed to finding something attractive in just about anyone. It was his job. But Harry was different. There was something…extra about him. And he intended to find out whatever that extra something was by making Harry exclusively his…for research purposes, of course; research that might involve nakedness and him neglecting his other work.

Asmodeus casually asked which side of the bed Harry would prefer.

Harry jumped and turned to meet his eyes. He knew that it was in Asmodeus' nature to be a lecherous son of a bitch, and he wasn't sure he minded that very much. He didn't mind a man that was a little aggressive when it came to his sensual side.

He took another leap of faith and crossed the room. Asmodeus met him halfway and pulled him into the best kiss of his life.

~000~

End Leap of Faith

So, obviously this is a spin-off of my long-neglected infamous Of Demons series. If you didn't like it, sorry, but if you did, send me a note


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